


all that smoke clouding your eyes

by chartreuser



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: 2nd POV, M/M, disregarding s4 onwards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 08:56:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2615936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chartreuser/pseuds/chartreuser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You feel ashamed of yourself, sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. [prologue]//face down (bow to the champion)

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a bit short, but sufficient for a beginning. I'd think. Also posted on [tumblr](http://crastrens.tumblr.com/post/102534479272/title-face-down-bow-to-the-champion-ship-obv). I'm yourguess, if any of the older thommy fans remember me from last year. I suddenly felt an impulse to write something about thommy, and well, here goes.

You always thought that you were a questionable man.

And this was always what you were: animalistic heart, childlike mind; you’re the transparent sort. All of them know that James is a pretty boy with a pretty face. Comments like these taste sour, resulting in a permanently bitter aftertaste down your throat. Doesn’t help that you don’t refute, either.

You accept it. Have this discomfort of their knowledge lying low in the backyards of your mind. A safe place. Confined, almost claustrophobic—but it suits your secrets just fine. 

So it smells like smoke, and it seems to look that way. This haven has always been shrouded in a fog you cannot navigate in. Half the time you’re lost; you don’t know what you’re thinking, what you  _should_  be thinking.

The results are unfavourable: your ego has simultaneously risen up to the sky and disintegrated on its way.

_Like smoke._

You know what this means. Time for a timely intervention, a distraction. A female one would be nice. You’ve the perfect candidate in mind and in this predicament, you don’t mind being cruel. Superficial, others would call. As if you are blind to others’ suffering, but what do they know? You have your own. 

Can’t help it. You have always been this way: shallow. So insecure that the entirety of you is eternally-plunged into a stinging kind of self-doubt. You don’t act this way. You act like there is no pain, but it is there. It is there the first time you bring yourself off to blokes and it is there the first time you fuck a girl. It is there the first time you reject a man and it is there the last time you rejected another…

And some days you feel ashamed.

You have a heart too numb to hurt and you feel it imploding in between the frames of your ribcage. Shards of loathing lodge themselves inside of you and you want to know. You want to know when your resolve had started to crack because of a Thomas Barrow—who is beautiful, really, all elongated fingers and tender dispositions. You are drunk off him. His name sits on the edge of your tongue each time you address him, formally, and you feel cowardice fogging up your brain.

So you think, and think. And think, and it  **hurts**. This self-imposed pain of want and need.

You follow your schemes and you seek a diversion. You run after Ivy and what you try to do is make love. Instead you are stuck fucking her, each time half-hard and never really aroused. Comical in hindsight, but it hurts more than you’d like to admit, because this isn’t the last time you tell yourself that you are broken. 

What you admit instead is this: you are not set out for this. You will spend the rest of your lonesome, pathetic life holding a facade of heterosexuality. For all these people that you will never really know, all for your own skin: pretty, unblemished,  _shallow_. 

You almost feel sorry for yourself.

 _Almost_ , because one day you wake up and understand that Ivy, poor little lamb, does not deserve any of this. You change your mind. It strikes you in the head that she hasn’t done anything to warrant this blatant usage of her. The way she trods to the lion’s den because of a simple infatuation. With you. A  _homosexual_.

 _Human, too, shallow as she is,_  you think.  _Shallow as you are, yourself._

And you distance yourself from her. Just like you do from Thomas Barrow, watching him snag fragments of everything that makes you human. Criminal, really. You watch on as if you are a spectator, it is as if you are not involved, because you do not want to be.

There are better ways to go than having this weighty train of achings crashing into your bones. Disorientated, unable to see through the fog.  _It’s the one making you lost_ , you repeat each and every night.

Except it’s not. The only reason why you are lost is  **yourself**. You are the one that is lost to his own timidity, the lack of nerves that Thomas Barrow apparently had.

So you wait until it comes. Until its absence spills out from you and clears the air, for slender fingers to disperse clarity in your head.

As if they are cigarette stubs left untouched in the courtyard.


	2. there's a room where the light won't find you

You stare at him. He doesn’t respond nor acknowledge what you’re doing, and you’re fine with that. The both of you deign to mention the incident (or so you term it), ever since it happened, and you’re fine. There is no more chatting or flirting between the both of you and once again, you’re perfectly content. You’ve accepted everything— _this—_ happening, because neither of you can get what you want.

Except you can’t help but wonder if he’s going to do anything about you. When you are outright stalking him. Blatantly. _As if that makes things better._

It is unsurprising that he doesn’t. This has been happening for quite a while now, and he most likely is used to it; unmentioned rendezvous in the quiet of a space so similar to the one you bury deep inside this conscience of you. There are words aching to drift out as you watch pillars of smoke form, floating upwards, and you wince as he catches you staring at his mouth.

There is a flash of anger. Lightning-quick, and for one moment you think you see him snarl. Panic settles into you and you let it wash past you, resisting the notions of attempting to soothe him. It will only infuriate him further; this shameless persistence in being around him even after you’ve expressed your disgust—and shame threatens to dissolve you.  _Not now,_  you frown,  _self-loathing can come later._

Made aware that Thomas’s features have rectified themselves into a mold of indifference, you will the discomfort away from your own. And something jolts inside of you. His previous cordiality is gone,  _of course it is._  You took this friendship away, you deal with the consequences, you deal with this because you  **fucked up**. You fucked up bad, and you know it. But you also know that everything is momentary. Someday, you are going to make him—make  _yourself_ —come to terms with your lack of too many things, bravery ruling over the top of them all. Your eyebrows furrow, but you smoothen them out. Although it’s too late; he has noticed.

You fix your levels of concentration and you too, stare back. Harder. In return, Thomas looks exasperated, like he doesn’t want to have anything to do with you anymore. You can relate, really. You don’t want anything having to do with yourself, either.

He lets out a little sigh as he exhales. Wisps of white mist cling to his exterior and you find yourself wanting to do the same. You want to curl yourself around the ends of his shoulders and draw yourself closer, until you are near enough to press teeth to his neck. Leave him disheveled. That’s a sight you’d love to see, really, until you  _remember_.

Something suspends in the air. You’re not quite sure what it is, so you go along with it, drowning in the taste of embarrassment and excitement. You see him send you another calculating look, fox that he is, but you pretend otherwise. Intrigue smudge the ends of his lips and now it is  _you_  that feels like snapping.

Except there’s absolutely no reason for you to, and you remind yourself of that, biting down on your lips. A metallic tang swirls around your tongue and you blink. It fills your mouth and it spills over, runs down until it reaches your chin. You remove your gloves and brush a finger against the area. Wiping the blood, you watch it stain your hand and in turn, your gloves.

You close your eyes in frustration.

When you open them, there is Thomas Barrow peering back at you, studying you with a fastidious gaze. “Better have them cleaned,” he mentions, somewhat redundantly, and rubs the cigarette between his fingers with a thumb. When he is closer, you can see the uncertainty in his eyes. Almost formless, volatile, breathtakingly ethereal. And you, you have forgotten the name of their colour in your study.

You stifle the urge of pressing hands to either side of his face. You look down, and when you glance back, he is gone. Was he always this way, so far away from your grasp? Was it your denial that had spurred him so far away, or was it the way you went about it, as if you were not a hypocrite, a self-preserving liar?

A blink and there is nothing left, and you find yourself aching for more.

_His presence used to be tangible_ , you remark to yourself, somewhat solemnly. You blink again, hoping to find him back in front of you, but nothing is materializing. And so you excuse yourself with a feeble ‘good evening’ from this emptiness, this sort of unbearable solitude, back to another that is all the same.


End file.
